Moving to an LED world

When we moved into the house, we bought a lot of Philips 100-watt equivalent dimmable CFL bulbs. A few have gone out and we have learned that no one sells 100-watt equivalent dimmable CFL bulbs anymore. Since we do not want to replace our lamps and switches we need to switch to LED bulbs. Which, as of now, generally are dimmable. The problem is that they are very expensive; it now takes $25 or so to get a light bulb. The benefits are more lumens (light) for the energy used, faster turn on, and better lifespan.

CFL bulbs promised crazy lifetimes when they came out. They are better than the old incandescents. They go for years instead of a year. But not as much as the advertising would leave you to believe. Hopefully the LEDs will go longer.

The only reasonably sized and reasonably priced 100 watt LED dimmable lightbulb is the Philips 19-watt A21. So we bought a pair for our living room. The light quality is about the same and they seem a bit brighter. We also got a lot of Philips 10.5 watt BR30 flood light LEDs for the basement since they were on sale for about $10. They are far brighter than the old CFL flood lights.

I did a quick little comparing of the old CFLs versus the new LED floods. Both use about 10 watts of energy.

Old bulb:

New bulb:

Looks about the same, right? Well, not quite. The new bulb required an exposure 15 times faster than old bulb to look the same to the camera. So, for the same energy, we get a lot more light.

Most expensive soap ever

A year ago Christmas, I got a soap making kit. Not the dangerous kind that involves lye, a very simple kind called "melt and pour." Basically it is like buying a huge block of soap in bulk, nuking it in the microwave, adding fragrance, color, and bits of things to exfoliate, and then letting it resolidify. Turning soap into soap. Not rocket science. Not even real soap-making. (Bear with me, this is going to turn into a house issue soon.)

Because I am running out of fancy soaps, I thought last night would be a fun time to try this out, finally. I melted the soap base, ground up some oatmeal (to make it exfoliating), and added some essential oil that I got with the kit. I've worked with essential oil before - as a kid even. And I theoretically know the rules - it's strong, so you shouldn't let it touch your skin undiluted. You should add it with a dropper in small quantities. But there was so much soap that I decided to just pour a tiny bit in, rather than add it with a dropper.

The bottle doesn't have a spout. I dribbled a little oil down the side. I didn't think that something that goes into soap, lip balm, face products, hair products, etc. as a natural fragrance was that bad. I stirred everything together and poured the soap into the molds.

I cleaned and wiped down the counter. It dried.

I noticed I missed a spot.

I wiped again. It dried again.

I  RUINED THE SURFACE OF OUR COUNTER TO MAKE CHEAP SOAP!!!!

Not really sure what to do. I recall that when we bought the house they said our countertop is made of Silestone (can't seem to actually verify this - there are no brand markings stamped on or anything). Even reading the website makes me think that this essential oil should be fine and should never have caused this much damage. Silestone is pretty resistant to everything and has very few warnings. Here's one I can find: "Do not use paint strippers, caustic soda, or products with a ph of more than 10." I obviously can't test the ph of the product but apparently I should have categorized it up there with paint thinners. Checking the internet for similar problems yielded nothing. Everything that comes up when searching for essential oils and counters and sheen (or something similar) covers making a natural cleaner with water and essential oil.

We're going to try this next, but I have major doubts that it will have any effect (and even if it does, won't it be temporary?):

Loss of sheen on the surface of the Silestone countertop may be due to the use of products (waxes, sprays, sealants, etc.) to try to bring out its lustre, although these products lose their effect over time. This lack of sheen therefore has nothing to do with the original mechanical sheen of the product when it leaves the factory. To recover this non-natural sheen, a multi-purpose furniture spray that is suitable for the countertop can be used.

So yeah, not a high point of my weekend. And honestly I'm a little afraid to use the soap, knowing how potent the fragrance is. I'm scared I put in a little too much since I was so imprecise with adding it. And after seeing what it did to the countertop, well....

Most expensive soap ever. Sigh...

Winter is coming...

Not the season, the tree. When grandma and grandpa promised our baby a tree for Christmas, I knew exactly what kind of tree to get - a Winter King Hawthorn. A name that really does sound like it's coming right out of Game of Thrones. All hail the Winter King! I'd read about them in some home improvement magazine and they seemed perfect:

• Maximum heights of about 35 feet, so nothing too giant
• Robust and resistant to disease
• Generally able to survive owners with bad gardening skills
• Lovely white flowers in the spring
• Red fruit that birds love to eat in the fall
• Peeling silvery bark in the winter

Sounds perfect, right? Hawthorns usually have big thorns (which certain birds use to impale their prey) but I'd read that the Winter King didn't. That was a bit of a mistake - turns out they don't have the big thorns on most hawthorns, but they may have some:

"In addition to all of its beauty and ease of culture, ‘Winter King’ does not have the long, sharp thorns that its wild cousin does.  Although it is not always completely without, the thorns it may possess will be small and few.  So if thorns are your concern, do not be concerned with ‘Winter King’.  Although without the thorns, you won’t get the very cool loggerhead shrikes either."

Not a huge problem though because Hawthorns don't make good climbing trees. So the tree that arrived today, which is a true Winter King, does have some thorns, but not many.

Even better (for busy new parents) - grandma and grandpa paid for delivery and planting. The nursery arrived first thing this morning and got to work. We'd already figured out where we wanted it and used our local 811 service to make sure that we weren't at risk of bursting a pipe or breaking a power line. The root ball wasn't as big as we feared and we probably could have planted this ourselves, but it was nice to have pros do it and give me some tips along the way:

They checked with me to make sure the tree was oriented correctly (we set it so that the larger branches should grow out to the sides, parallel with the house and the street). They mixed compost in the soil as they planted it:

They showed me that we should keep this trough structure to be able to touch the root ball and assess dryness and also because it makes a well for water. In addition to the info sheet that we received, they walked me through all the watering suggestions (2 minutes of hose time each morning for the first 3 days, then 2 minutes of hose time during the hot summer) to help this hawthorn get established. Then they added some mulch on top (keeping the same trough structure):

 Ta-dah! This sweet little girl has her very own tree now!